Newcastle vs Cardiff – Match Preview

Written by Dr. Ed Harrison

9:48am Saturday, January 4th, 2014

Commented 151 times

The bubble has burst at Newcastle and after going 9 league games when we won seven and drew one for 22 points from a possible 27 points, we have quickly lost the last two to Arsenal and West Brom by 1-0.And Newcastle really only have themselves to blame for the two defeats, falling asleep for Arsenal’s winning goal from a free kick after 65 minutes, and then Mathieu Debuchy getting himself sent off for a two footed tackle after 62 minutes at the Hawthorns, when it looked like Newcastle could have won that game.

And to make matters just a little bit worse, Coloccini and Cabaye picked up injuries on Wednesday, and are not available for the game today, and goalkeeper Tim Krul is also doubtful.

All we know from Alan Pardew on the team selection is that Ben Arfa will definitely start the game, and yesterday at his press conference, he talked about Newcastle needing to win a trophy soon – since it’s been 45 years since we last won anything and 59 years since we last won a domestic trophy.

So he’s right there.

It’s a good question as to what the team will be today – but here’s a shot at the starting line-up, and we’ll assume Tim Krul can make this game:

Tiote will again captain the side today, and it could be that Papiss Cisse starts in place of Loic Remy, who probably needs a rest at some point soon, since he’s played in almost every game.

And it’s a great opportunity for both Steven Taylor and Yanga-Mabiwa to show what they can do in the Newcastle defense, in the absence of Colo and Debuchy.

Maybe we’ll even see Jonas Gutierrez as a sub – and we’re not exactly sure what he’s done to be left out of the side this season – but there are rumors if he plays a certain amount of games, the club has to offer him a new deal.

He’s played 194 times for the Magpies in total so far, and maybe that magic number is 200, but he’s played only twice this season, and last season he played 40 times. 🙁

And after Aston Villa manager’s Paul Lambert’s less than complimentary comments on the FA Cup yesterday, Alan Pardew had this to say about the competition, which is second best now to the Premier League – and by a long way:

“I do think the scheduling – five games in 15 days – isn’t right, and with the FA Cup on the back of it, it isn’t fair,”

“I don’t think it’s fair on Premier League managers, if I’m honest.” “But we have to suffer it, and I’m looking forward to the game. I’m hoping we can win.”

We’ve lost our last two games, but they were close, and one (negative) way to look at both games is we found a way to lose them both, with some sloppy and unprofessional play.

The manager talked about the two defeats yesterday:

“Really and truly, they’ve been two tight affairs, and we’ve lost them both.” “It’s actually quite galling. When you get two tight games like that, it’s hard to take for the group.”

“So we really need to win. I think it will be tight, and we want to win a tight game.”

There’s never much in a game between two Premier League sides, which we have today in the FA Cup, and the fact that Cardiff City have won only one of their last 10 games, and have a new manager in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, makes us just a little worried about this game.

In the previous three times Alan Pardew has managed Newcastle in the FA Cup, we’ve gone out in the 3rd round twice and the 4th round once, and both times to lower league teams, Brighton twice and Stevenage three years ago.

That is not a good record at all.

So the last thing we want to see today is a defeat or even a draw.

Newcastle should have good enough squad players in the side to be able to win this game, and start to turn around what is hopefully only a blip in our league results.

Otherwise we’ll have those doom and gloomers (or is is it gloom and doomers?) flooding back in – telling us all – we told you so.

151 comments so far

Cisse, as good a goalscorer as he is, is just that. He needs the chances created for him. With an injured cabaye and Marv not about this season I’m not sure how many players in the pitch will be getting the right passes into him to score so this night not be his game.

Rather have Ashley, imagine being Newcastle dragons and having to play in red? Much worse than anything Ashley has done.

And he’s hardly spending big money either, sold their soul for about 30mil this summer.

City have the best owner by far. Keeps things traditional, hires a top manager once they got to a level they could attract one. Spends a fortune of own cash, not loans to club, building a huge academy and regenerating whole part of Manchester, but mainly keeps his nose out and appoints proven technical directors to run the football side of things.

its comments like this from pardew that shows he is totally incompetent,

why does he need a few more weeks? he knows what he can do, or at least he should do,

today I think we will lose , also down to pardews incompetence , instead of mixing it up over the xmas, given a few players a rest, he will make a lot of changes in one match, players in from the cold with no form at all, he might even let ee-or shola lead them out as captain,

this argument about ben afra, why should he defend ???, id rather have him no where near our box, and in the other half of the pitch, where he can defend from the front,

the other thing, goofy or HBA, what does goofy offer ???really, he runs, but his passing is the worst, im talking really poor, he never creates anything,, yet he is our forward, he scores , but he wont get you 10 and create 10, HBA will,

a lot of you are now blinded into pardews style of defensive football, and you have forgot what the game is all about, scoring goals and winning games

i think Pardew needs to try something new like a 4-3-1-2, even IF we manage to win today i would use the FA cup to try different formations because lets face it as much as we want Newcastle to bring a cup home we simply won’t

Gouffran has only had 1 poor game and that was against WBA, he was getting into good positions, tracking back well but his passes where awful especially when he had a chance for a through ball on his left and right to lead to a goal but instead he passes it to there defender

I think HBA needs to defend in our system myself….not that i like our system.

With our players we should be playing higher up the field, pressing teams in their half and winning the ball back to attack..It’s no good us asking hba, remy, gouff, shola etc to press high up if the rest sit so deep as a single pass then takes all 4 of them out the game and leaves a huge gap between midfield and attack…thats the fault of our system though and why we sit deep and never close down much.

Imo hba should come back a little bit, halfway in to our half max! But he should be up front with the ST ready to counter if we get the ball. i never get why we get all our players to defend then have to try and pass it out of our defense cause no one is upfront. Thats how we get caught out quite often, santon+colo give the ball away becausd they get closed down. If we had options upfront they could just launch it for them to chase (if need be).

Sage Your right 6 goals already 2 assists for goofy and 20 chances created, sorry but catchy saying he is the new Jonas is absolute BS And yeah HBA has never reached double figures in goals and assists in a season before, he’s coming up for 27, for me as a winger he can’t be far off the peak of his career

HBA has had several teams and managers and none of them have managed to unlock the talent the lad posses. To me that shows he doesn’t want it enough or doesn’t know/can’t do it, still a good player mind, just not as good as he should be.

Sage Also not disputing HBA should track back a bit, just saying that’s not Pardews not saying he’s not defending so he’s not playing, it’s just a made up fact to beat him with Pardew has enough faults so why the need to make faults? Just takes any validity away from posts

we should play like we did against Man U in every game but i don’t understand why Pardew doesn’t do this.

Transfer Sage

only if MYM was in defence we should press high, having Willo & Collo pushing higher up is gonna leave us in many dire situations since they are slow players but MYM has the speed to quickly track back.

unless we use Willo & Collo for offside traps purpose high up the field but then again the officials have hardly been on our side ( except the stoke game )

yeh, you are right there. Pardew is stating his consistency, which is a fair complaint but I also appreciate the counter argument to that people have that plenty others like shola, sissoko, remy…shoot/waste possession when they shouldn’t so it’s not just HBA.

I think the big issue is that we all know ben arfa is capable of so much more than those others so them playing at 90% is equal to ben arfa at 50%…so the levels are the same but the potential in benny is so much more, thats why people are harsher on him and want to push him

The wheels are coming off now. Injuries & suspensions will really expose our squad now. Last 2 games lost because of Pardew’s defensive tactics. Especially West Brom were there for the taking but it was obvious we were playing for a 0-0 after only 10 minutes into 1st half. There were signs that Pardew was actually learning then he reverts to type when things aren’t working in 1st half he hasn’t got a clue how to change things and then goes for broke in the last 5mins. strolla…. FFS…… We will never have any chance in cup games with this defensive mindset. We should win today but please give Cisse a chance. We know there’s a good striker in there but just doesn’t fit Pardew’s game plans anymore – he prefers a big target man. Howay the lads!

Pardew should start with the centre back pairing he intends to use for the City game. Mbiwa looked off the pace last game and needs 90 mins with Williamson. It could be argued that the fullbacks should also be the starters against City with Haidara at left back and Santon at rb.

We had a stupid marginal loss at a team that finished above us last season. We did good v Arsenal and Stoke was great.

Yes 2012 was amazing, 13 was poor and 14 will be where we should be – top half competing with Swansea, Southampton and hopefully Everton.

So my 14 very realistic hopes for 2014:

1. Alnwick to have a debut at same point before a league loan spell next season 2. Tavernier to excel at Rotherham and come back ready to be a squad player next season 3. Ferguson to play more and improve in second Blues loan spell, ready to be back up next season 4. Streete to do the same as Alnwick. Maybe he’s crap but let’s give him half an hour today then he had his chance a la Airey. 5. MYM or Taylor to replace Colo as main CB 6. Bigi to get games, maybe on loan! 7. Obertan and Marveaux to challenge first XI 8. Newton to come back from Scotland a la Dummett and be quality back up 9. Sami to surprise me, Shola had so many chaotic changes over the years he never made it into a quality player. Sami has stability.. 10. HBA to consistently star 11. Vuckic to stay fit and provide quality back up 12. All these young players proving quality back up will push the first team, as Elliott, a CB, Anita and Gouffran push on we become less reliant on stars like Krul, Colo, Cab and Remy so it’s ok if they leave. We build SLOWLY and REALISTICALLY with top 10 finishes. 13. No major management changes. Postiive PR. 14. Debuchy to grow up.

Most of these are not very exciting targets in the short term, but will work long term. So here’s my not very exciting team for today’s match. Yes we risk losing but top 10 consistency is more important than Europa league unpredictability for now.

Dont think we should b dropping Gouffran just cos he wasn’t at his best at west brom, he’s been great all season and he was stil 10 times better than amanobody, Cisse needs a chance, we desperately need a striker who can play with his back 2 goal, Cisse and Remy cant do this and i’d rather play Krul up front than play Ameobi, i would also like 2 c more of sammy, i think he’s a real threat running at defences, and FFS i wish ben arfa would start passing the ball

I agree on a 4312. All our players cut in anyway. Pards wont do it though. Remy is bad upfront by himself, so this would be better for him, hba would have to defend less (better for him) still get 3 CMs to dominate the game, tiote, cabaye, sissoko/anita. Think it would be our best formation atm

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